The People & Culture Podcast with James Judge

Navigating cross-cultural communication with Tamerlaine Beasley

Tamerlaine Beasley is the Managing Director of Beasley Intercultural, a company that has provided cross-cultural training and advisory services for over 20 years. Tamerlaine has worked with business, government and international agencies and in this episode I get her insights on how to navigate cross-cultural communication issues. .

Developments in Dispute Resolution with Amber Williams

Topics covered include Working for a member organisation vs a corporate organisation.   How did you become the CEO of Resolution Institute?  What’s the accreditation situation for mediators in New Zealand?  What other forms of dispute resolution practitioners are there and what standards exist to regulate them? Expert determination and accreditation (what is it and how migth you become one)? The role of mediation and legal practice in dispute resolution.  The role of restorative practice in Australia and New Zealand. What else is emerging in the practice of dispute resolution or what is happening at the Resolution Institute that might interest listeners?

Trends in Human Resources in Europe (with Tim Rayner)

In this episode I'm joined by Tim Rayner from ChapmanCG, a leading, global executive search firm dedicated solely to the Human Resource profession. Tim has been working in talent management and executive search for over 20 years. He is based in Europe where he specialises in senior HR search assignments. We talk about trends he’s seeing in the world of human resources, recruitment, and what he's hearing from the clients he works with at the most senior levels.

Bullying in the workplace and being an upstander (with Jessica Hickman)

In this month's episode I'm talking to Jessica Hickman [https://dashboard.simplecast.com/accounts/d98cb20d-9112-4928-9170-be58cd4d7882/shows/4ed4d5bc-257c-4b35-9437-f091c579e3db/episodes/6945c649-27c5-4e45-8e42-6d6aad9cb39a/jesshickman.com] about her new book, The Upstander Leader, and what she is doing to help build capability in leaders and organisations to stop and prevent bullying. She also shares some of the personal journey she went through that brought her to this field. In the conversation we explore the bystander effect and how it's a key contributor to toxic cultures. We also talk about the work she does to help move people from what she describes as the 'bystander zone' to becoming upstanders. We look at how good leadership is also a key component in creating positive workplace cultures and what factors are at play to sometimes unconsciously make people bystander. Jess has also identified specific upstander traits and outlines 5 critical steps that people can take to develop themselves as upstander leaders. Among these is a commitment to learning and moving from a fixed to a growth mindset. There is also a discussion of replacing authority with influence and why that's increasingly important. Interestingly she positions love as one of the critical leadership values, at times a difficult conversation to have in some of the male dominated industries she has and continues to work with. - You can find out more about her website & book at Jessica Hickman. [https://jesshickman.com/] - Additional resources and help on Bullying are here Bullyology – Break the silence on bullying. [https://bullyology.com/] - The online course she has developed is here Upstand Academy by Jessica Hickman [https://www.upstandacademy.com.au/] I hope you find the conversation informative (I could listen to a Welsh accent all day, but that's probably immaterial to most of you). All reviews and comments welcome.

From the playing field to the boardroom - insights from sports psychology (with Dr Kirsten Peterson)

In this month's episode I'm excited to be talking to Dr Kirsten Peterson [https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-kirsten-peterson-7728003/] about what she has learnt about high performance from coaching elite athletes. More specifically, we explore how this learning can be applied more broadly, including in the workplace. Dr Peterson is a performance psychologist with a deep background working with sports people at the elite level, having worked for many years with both the US Olympic Committee and the Australian Institute of Sport. We cover a range of topics, including her experience coaching a wide rang of acrobatic and combat sports, at both the individual and group level, for US Olympic teams. We discuss what can be learnt from mistakes made in sports coaching that should not be translated to the workplace, including why we still have allegations of bullying, discrimination and racial abuse to this very day (e.g. Hawthorn Football Club). Her view is that there a couple of contributing factors at play.   > "There are some well meaning but outmoded ideas about how human beings can and should be motivated or encouraged .. we are rapidly accumulating great evidence about how the human brain works that we didn't have 20 years ago so people were taking their best guess and its also a bit of, I was raised with this tough love attitude so if it's good enough for me... "   To some extent its coaches not knowing any better, and they may get results, but not sustainable ones. On the darker side she explains that there are too many times when too much authority is given to someone but with no accountability for their behaviour, so they can get away with things. Athletes feel like they have no choice because if they don't agree or do what is demanded of them, they will get dropped from the team. There is also often a power imbalance at play. Setting up a balance between safety and accountability is also a key component of great performance. The literature strongly shows that making an environment psychologically safe enough so that anyone can talk openly about what they don't know, or when they have made a mistake to be able to admit it without feeling like their head is going to be chopped, off is critical. On the other hand coaches can fear this idea of psychological safety because it sounds too comfortable. It's really about absolute impeccable accountability, done in a safe way.   > "It's not brutalising accountability, and it's not safety at all costs without any accountability."   So often these environments can be uncomfortable, because everyone is striving to be better, but it's done in a way that feels OK. Ground rules are important here as well as integrity, doing what you say you are going to do, and having one set of rules that apply to everyone. I also ask here what differences there might be in what you would say to encourage better performance in individuals as opposed to working or communicating with a team. Kirsten explains that in both kinds of sports, either communicating with the individual or a group, its universally true that you want to be able to build trust so you can ask the deeper questions. This requires two things, a relationship, and an ability to ask those questions that go below the surface. The conversation also covers. - The greatest mistakes she believes leaders make when trying to get the best performance from their team. - Developments over the last few decades in areas such as mindfulness, flow, resilience and grit. - What mental toughness actually means (is it really a thing and how can it be weaponised to label people soft or weak). - The insights she lays out in her new book "When grit is not enough [https://www.kirstenpetersonconsulting.com/product-page/when-grit-is-not-enough]" and her concept of non-contingent reinforcement and goal setting. Kirsten's website can be found here [https://www.kirstenpetersonconsulting.com/] I hope you find the conversation as informative as I did. Please reach out and let me know of any other topics you'd like me to explore?